5 Examples of How to Use Online Video to Compliment Site Content


We hear it all the time… ‘content is king‘. But more than anything else, we should be focusing on the value of our site content and how we create it. The truth is… text content is on it’s way out and video content is in.

Yes, written text content will always have its place (especially with SEO and Google), but if you want to engage with rising trend of mobile viewers and everyone with a shortening attention span, you need to start investing some time and energy into using online video. This is simply the next phase of adaptation that has to take place for content creators, which we have all previously done with the rise of social networks.

To help with this process, I’m going to show you three different examples of how sites are complimenting their own written content with additional video content. These methods are easy to implement and extremely effective, so make sure to the same with your own sites and content.

Video Summaries of Text Content

Many website owners, bloggers, and social media marketers are focusing all of their efforts on text content. While this isn’t a problem, there are a few things you could be doing to create an even better experience for your audience.

Creating a video summary of your latest article is something I’m sure your audience would heavily benefit from. It’s much easier and more enjoyable to watch a 30-60 second video, then read through a 500-1000 word blog post.

You can see an example of this being done at mysimpleshow.com within each of their blog posts. Not only do they have custom images created for each post, they also occasionally have a nice little whiteboard video to summarize everything as well. To see an example blog post with an explainer video in place, click here.

Using Real Video to Backup Statements

With “fake news” always being a hot topic of discussion these days, it’s always important to consider where you are getting your information from. It’s one thing to read a quote or an article from a website, and it’s another to see an actual video where to content is actually coming from.

A perfect example of this can be seen through TMZ.com, and specifically in one of their recent gossip writeups on Stephen Collins. The article was all about the 7th Heaven Cast getting together and if the mother on the show was going to participate. Not only did TMZ have a short write up on the story, they also have an exclusive video with Catherine Hicks as well.

In the case of gossip and entertainment, online video is always going to perform best. Now the question is… how can you be using real video within your own content?

Video Promotion through Social Media Channels

Since we are on a social media focused blog, it would only make sense for us to be talking about all of the new and exciting ways to use online video to reach our wide range of audiences — especially with social media. Sure… most of us are already using Facebook and Twitter, but if you aren’t actively growing a following and sharing your video with audiences on Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, you are simply missing out.

This is something Adcombo is doing well with at the moment, as they are trying to spread the world on their #Ferrari_Adchallenge contest where they are giving away a $200,000 sports car to their top affiliate. Not only will the concept in itself draw attention to the brand, so will the custom videos they’ve created for the campaign as well.

Something that brands are starting to realize more and more, is that shareable and viral content is going to work best with their audiences — while also ultimately putting the success of their campaigns and content into the hands of their audience. This is where the high quality video really provides value.

Providing Your Audience with Better Visual Instruction

As mentioned earlier, text content is always going to have a place on the internet, but where it can hurt your brand is if you still only rely on that medium. A perfect example of how to integrate video within your content and provide more value to your blogging audience than ever before is to simply give your audience the option to read through your best content or simply watch a video.

This is something Blogging.org has done through their ‘create a blog’ tutorial. The actual text content on the site is a few thousand works, which is broken down in great detail… but the average person to the site might not want to actually read through all of that.

Instead, the visitor can simply click on the cartoon video for how to start a blog and get an audio and visual instruction instead. The best part of using something like this is that it can be applied to nearly any business, brand, industry or content message out there.

Viral Videos to Increase Page Views

How many times have you been suckered into clicking on one of those native advertising content pieces that display a celebrity or shows some crazy image that grabs your attention? Not only are you often sent off to a site with numerous areas and click and content to scroll through, you will likely also come across a lot of online videos in the process.

For the most part, these websites are just trying to get as many pageviews as possible — which they successfully are. With this in mind, it’s not so much about the text content, it’s more about the images and videos that can be used (and sourced from other sites like YouTube). A perfect example of this would be the video section on eBaumsWorld.

Not only does this type of video usage increase page views, it also makes for a much easier content creation process for the site owner, and a more enjoyable experience for the site visitor.

Online Video is the Future… Are You Willing to Adapt?

If you don’t think the examples of video within content is enough to convince you of the future and power of online video, these YouTube video stats will. Video is in demand more than ever and if your site continues to rely only on traditional methods like text content and graphic images, you may quickly see your competition scooping up a good percentage of your audience.

Take a look at your current content creation and marketing effort, then think about how you can start putting online video to use for your brand.


Zac

Zac Johnson is an entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the world of online marketing and branding. Follow his journey at Blogging.org and ZacJohnson.com.

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